The field of the invention is woodworking machinery and the invention relates more specifically to machinery for surfacing or roughening lumber to provide lumber with a rough sawn look. Rough sawn lumber has found widespread use in home building and office, hotel and restaurant construction to provide a warm, rustic appearance. Many years ago, such lumber was commonly used in remote areas where lumber sizing machinery was not available. The lumber directly from the first sawing operation was used before it was smoothed and sized into the standard lumber sizes. This look is often referred to as a "resawn look."
Plywood panels have been textured in this manner for many years and a machine for carrying out this surfacing operation is disclosed in the Kneisel U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,352. The Kneisel process utilizes a band saw blade which is maintained in a parallel relationship with respect to the plywood panel which is being surfaced. Chain saw blades have also been used for this purpose and one such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,561,509. A decorative laminated wood panel and the method of making the same is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,515,620. Circular saw blades are used to roughen the surface of lumber in a machine made by Idaco, but the surface of the lumber from this machine has semicircular grooves which do not duplicate the vertical grooves or scratches created by the original sawing operation. Another machine for roughening the surface is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,320,984, but this machine also has semicircular grooves and does not duplicate the rough sawn look.
Many lumber mills stock both rough sawn and smooth lumber but the added cost of increased inventory could be reduced if smooth lumber could be easily roughened. The mill would then have to stock only standard lumber sizes and could fill resawn lumber orders by merely roughening the surface of the standard lumber grades.